Speaking about Black History Month on that fateful February night,
he quoted the timeless words of Dr. Martin Luther King: “Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“Whether it’s Putin or racial injustice, you need a fierce urgency of
now,” Alleyne told his TeenSHARP students. “You need courage. There
needs to be a fire that keeps burning. There will always be a level of
distraction, but what really matters, and how do you stay connected to
those things?”
Perhaps by living through Alleyne and Poladko’s example. With every reason to pause their TeenSHARP programs and workshops, the couple continued. When racist videos circulated on social media, they pushed back.
As a Black American, Alleyne does not shy away from the truth. “Black people were mistreated in Ukraine,” he said. “My barber in Warsaw had a harrowing experience.” But when he heard the ensuing criticisms from fellow people of color—“Why should we care about Ukraine? Look how they’re treating us,”—Alleyne offered his own warnings.
“I said, ‘Some of this is true, but be careful. Americans are not used to cyberwarfare.’ Putin was creating and fomenting dissension. We believe it can’t happen here in America, and that’s what makes us so vulnerable.”
And yet, disbelief is a somewhat natural response, he added.
“It’s hard to think like a depraved dictator. You continue to think like a rational being,” Alleyne said. “Imagine living in Newark and there’s a war. You think, ‘Who’s coming here? This isn’t a strategic target.’ But neither was Bucha [the site of a Russian-led massacre that left 458 dead and a city 18 miles away from Alleyne’s home]. I don’t care what kind of political science training you’ve had, it’s hard to theorize. That’s why I think America struggles with Putin. We can’t theorize someone not playing by the rules; going to Bucha, killing civilians, women, children.”